Letters to Home
by Scarlet Hondae
Summary: Just a series of letters from Damon to Stefan during the war, discovered in storage by Elena.
1. Author's Notes and a Rant

A series of letter, discovered by Elena in a storage in a spare bedroom of the Salvatore Boarding House, reveal parts of Damon's life during the Civil War.

Disclaimer That Wouldn't Stand Up In Court: … I own Vampire Diaries. That's right, I own it! That's why I'm writing fanfiction! That's why Damon wears clothes during the show! …. Yeah. Nope, sorry, I don't own anything.

Notes about the story? I try to be as historically accurate as possible in these stories. If you see anything that's wrong, whether it's numbers or fact, please tell me! I'll fix it! I like accuracy even better than...well, as much as creativity!

Hmmmm...what else to say, what else to say...Okay, hows about a little rant?

If you're easily offended, stop now and skip the to Chapter 2.

….

You've been warned.

Okay, here we go.

Damon is an asshole, completely and utterly. I've read a bunch of fics where he's secretly a nice guy, where he secretly doesn't _want _to kill people; he just feels compelled to. That's _bullshit_. He's a bad dude, people, a real BAMF (if you don't know what the is...stop reading. Just...stop. Please. Then go ask your parents and come back...maybe.) He _liked killing people_. Sure, he ain't slaughtering puppies and kitties and cute little babies, but that's because what _fun _is there in killing those things? Okay, that and he's amoral, not evil, but whatever.

Point is, he's not gonna magically turn good and nice and fluffy like a Pretty Little Pony. Nope, sorry, ain't gonna happen. He's spent what, one hundred and forty five years _killing indiscriminately_? Yeah, people who are good inside? They don't do that! They might kill bad people or they might, ya know, kill bunnies, like poor Saint Stefan, but they do not kill many, many people without reason.

Yeah, sure, that's what Vampires do, right? Wrong. Evidence? I have a list. Go on, read it. You know you wannnnntttt tooooo.

A – Stefan doesn't kill anything but bunnies. He isn't, of course, a very good example, but whatever. He counts.

B – Anna. Sure, she probably killed people, but she didn't go around mass-murdering people.

C – Pearl. Er, not sure she counts. I didn't really see her kill people, but...You know what? Scratch her.

Let's go on to D – Rose (spoilers ahead). As she lay dying, after going insane and killing some humans, she told Damon (or maybe it was Elena, I wasn't paying that much attention) that'd she'd never killed a human before. She kidnapped Elena, planned to let her die, but she'd never killed anyone. She didn't drink bunnies like Stefan, but she doesn't kill people to get their blood. Why? Because you don't _need to kill_ to get blood. You just need to suck (ignore the sexual joke lurking there). She wasn't exactly good, but she wasn't exactly what I'd term 'bad'.

Damon? He _killed people_. _For fun._ A lot of people, a lot of fun. Hey, just look at Mister Tanner. He got his freaking jugular ripped open, and for what? Because Stefan insinuated Damon was weak? Damon _could _have pulled a Pearl and gorged out Stefan's eyes. It would have proven the point, and a whole lot more efficiently at that. Damon didn't, though. Instead, he killed someone. You don't take that alt. unless you just plain like killing, too.

Don't believe me? Look at the episodes, what, ten through thirteen of season two. He _admits _to liking murder and all that jazz. Why? Because he ain't a good guy. Stop writing him as a bleeding heart, people! He isn't!

I will admit, of course, that there are probably some very good fics out there with him portrayed as Poor Misunderstood 'I Never Meant to Hurt Anyone', but I haven't found any. Please, if you know of one, tell me – I swear, I won't leave flames if I don't like it (mostly because I just don't review...I'm challenged and hypocrite, so sue me).

Okay, btw, just to clarify – I do NOT believe that Damon is evil. He's just not human. He doesn't have the same morals or ethics, the same principles that we do. I mean, sure, he's a bad dude, by human standards (read above reasons). He's not evil, though. If he were evil, he'd have killed Stefan, Elena and Bonnie (or hey, if he were me, he'd have killed off the last one). Instead, he protected them, so no, he ain't evil.

That does not, however, mean that he's a good guy, not even by vampire standards. Sure, by vampire standards, he's not a Saint, he'd not even close to good, but he's really far from evil. By the human standards...not so far. Still, I don't believe he's evil; he just doesn't see the same as human beings, which makes him a BAMF to humanity and a morally gray vampire to other vamps. Just wanted to clear that up.

….

Rant over.

All's good, now...if people take that lovely piece of advice about Damon not being a nice guy.

Yeah...Sorry if I offended anyone. Wasn't my intention – actuallly, my intention was to explain my story to you before you actually read it. Didn't work out that way, though, did it? Oh well. Whatever.

Please! Go read! I'm actually proud of myself for these. Plus, ya know, I'm learning a crap load about the Civil War while writing it. Yay! History (and no! That wasn't sarcastic! I like history!)!

Ta for now,

Try not to be offended,

-Insert Whatever Name I'm Using At the Moment-


	2. May 31, 1863

The letters were old, yellow in color and frayed at the edges, brittle and hard in texture; they were so brittle, in fact, that Elena feared they'd fall apart on her. They were folded, had probably been so for decades. The sides fell open, the crease in the middle like the hinge of a door, revealing beautiful script that looked as if it belonged on the set of _Where the Wind Blows_...except Elena knew that the movie wasn't entirely accurate, thanks to her boyfriend's brother, who'd snorted and made fun of the movie the one time he'd seen her watching it.

She had to pull the brittle letter close to her face, or, rather, lower her face to the letter, nose almost touching the old parchment. The script was small and elegant, black as night; some of the words, though, were not entirely visible, smudged by water stains. Elena wanted to believe the liquid had been water or even tears, but the light red leftovers suggested blood drops.

_May 31, 1863_

_Brother,_

_I killed my first human being today. It was George Blaskrider, - you remember him, don't you? He lived a few miles away by horse with his mother and father. He was a friend of ours, Stefan;, closer to me than to you, of course, but a friend of the family all the same._

_I knew, of course, that the Blackriders were never on the side of the South or Father. I knew that they had sent their sons to fight on the side of the North. I remember saying goodbye to him, to his father...I just...I never expected to be the one to kill him._

The next few lines were smudged. In fact, almost all the middle of the letter was smudged, with what looked to be a combination of blood and darker substances. There wasn't anything there, of course – the blood and water and probable dirt had vanished long ago, before she had been even a twinkle in her grandmother's eye. Still, the shadow of those things remained, though only a shadow, Elena was grateful to observe. The letter continued, though.

_Stonewall Jackson is dead. Is is a huge defeat, a huge blow, to our army. He passed over on the tenth, a mere twenty one days ago, though you probably already know. The plantation seems to receive news faster than the green recruits of the army, even the officers. Not that news matters, though; we shall fight on, if not for ideals, then for survival. A single man's death will impact the army little._

_Life is hard here, brother, and it is sad, almost unbearably so. So much death, so much sadness and depression. I wish, brother, that I was home with you, despite Father's presence._

_I must bid you farewell now, Stefan._

_Forever your Brother,_

_D. Salvatore_

Elena folded the letter carefully, setting it back in the elaborately decorated box that housed it. She wasn't quite sure what to make of it; it appeared to be a letter from Damon's first days in the Civil War, and not happy days, either. Not that, of course, Elena had _expected _the Civil War to be happy. It was just...well, Damon was fighting things like slavery and other things, and yet...he'd sounded so reluctant, so miserable, not like a man fighting for what he believed in. Maybe she was reading too much into it, but...

Elena shook her head and placed the wooden box back on the shelf, standing. She had to go find Stefan – he should be done 'eating' by now and ready for their date.


	3. June 10, 1864

She didn't know what compelled her to grab another letter from the box. In fact, she didn't know why she had even thought of the letters again. It had been a week since she'd read the first one, and she hadn't thought about it since. Then she'd stepped foot in the spare bedroom again and the first thing her chocolate gaze had narrowed on had been that intricate box.

It was a dark cherry wood, Celtic looking designs carved into the sides. The latch to the box was one that should have required a key, a brass lock that was open and unlocked. The lid was beautiful to look at, a painted landscape of a pasture in front of a forest. Horses grazed in the background, behind a dark wooden fence, while two teenage guys lounged on the railings. The tallest one leaned back against the fence, hair black and lips smiling – the only thing that resembled Damon was the color in the eyes, a diamond with a hint of blue or green, depending on the light. The other was in his early teens, the smile on the lips the same as the one Stefan sometimes got when thinking of something he'd never speak of.

Elena reached in and plucked, carefully, another yellowed letter, the paper brittle and hardened in her hands. This one was smudged, too, like the last, though the spots were clear, unlike the reddish tint that had signaled the stain had once been blood. Elena was thankful for that small favor; she hated seeing dried blood, as odd as that was. It was just crusty and nasty.

_June 10, 1864_

_My brother,_

_We are in Virgina once more, brother, and I am trying to gain leave. After our victory, if you wish to call it such, at Cold Harbor, I am hoping that my commanding officer will allow the rest of my unit some leave time. Of all the units in his section of the army, ours is third in age. My men had been together the longest, have fought the longest and hardest, save for two others, who are all but decimated after that last battle, God have mercy upon their souls._

_I am looking forward to home. It is, in fact, the hope of seeing you that keeps me going throughout these battles. It is horrific here. My hands are bathed in blood, and I wake, night after night, to the sounds of suffering and screams in my ears. Some of them are mine – others belong to my men, while the rest belong to my supposed enemies._

_Personally, I do not understand why we fight, why Father sent me into this war. I do not believe in the so-coined right of the Southern people to hold another humans life in their hands, to own souls. I, for one, have wished for year upon year that the black men would be freed. I can only hope you feel the same – as humans, it should not be within us to debase another in such a way that we do, in the way the Father does, no matter the hue of their skin. When you truly think of it, Stefan, some of the black men are more human than our supposed superior race. Do you remember our former cook, whose name we never discovered, he was so dehumanized? Was it not him who hid me and took my beating from Father whenever he could manage?_

_Truly, when I reflect upon the cook's actions and our Father's reactions, I come to believe that the black man was more humane than our own white Father. God bless his soul, whether it be in Heaven, as I believe, or in some pagan Hell, as the church decreed._

The next few lines were smudged, as if someone had dabbed the...whatever it was that was used to write back then (quills?) with too much ink. The words had blurred together, blocking each other out.

_I know, in all likelihood, that I will be unable to receive a response from you, whether it be because I am deceased or because I have moved camp, I am not sure. Still, please promise me that you will not endeavor to join the army, brother. I took this hell upon my own shoulders to protect you, Stefan, and now that I am in the middle of the war...now that blood paints my hands and my face, now that scars decorate my body, now that my eyes have witness unthinkable horrors...The urge to keep you from this life has not lessened; it has merely intensified, multiplied by thousands. Continue your study of literature and art, but please, please, do not ask Father to join me in combat. I know you will think to do so after reading this letter, but I beg of you, allow me the honor of protecting you, as an eldest brother should._

_I must depart now, brother. Our unit is to scout ahead. I hope to see you soon._

_D. Salvatore_

Elena carefully folded the letter and placed it back into the box, swallowing back the sadness that came from reading Damon's letter. She'd know him for months and she'd never glimpsed any of what the letters revealed. He'd been sadistic, uncaring, arrogant, but never protective, never...never anything like these letters suggested.

"Elena?" Stefan's voice floated into the spare room. She knew it was politeness's sake only; his vampire hearing and senses, Stefan had once explained, had made it easy for him to track her, wherever she was, in his house.

She placed the box back where it had belonged, dragging the dust cover half over it, half off of it, like it had been before she'd disturbed it. "In here, Stefan."

Pushing the thoughts of Damon and his letters from her head, she turned her smiling face to her boyfriend, abandoning her morose thoughts for the day. Now wasn't the time for thinking about memories not her own; now was the time for making memories.


	4. Don't look in the mirror, my child

Author's Note: Based on the line (from somewhere) – 'Don't look in the mirror, my child – you won't like what you see.'

* * *

There were several words that could be used to describe his actions, he reflected. Foolish, sentimental, weak, girlish, and, in these modern years, 'gay' could quite possibly be applied. None of those words described him (not since he'd been turned, anyway), but after he did this...

_ Not that anyone would ever know if you peaked,_ the sentimental and weak voice in his head assured him_. _Stefan and Elena are at school, which, while a giant waste of time for _them_, was actually a positive thing for Damon. The happy couple being at school meant he had the manor to himself for the majority of the day – he could plot, plan, drink and generally be a bastard without Stefan calling foul (the pussy).

Why, then, had he chosen to go through old fucking letters from his human life? What the hell was up with _that_?

Elena, he thought, bitterly. Always it was Elena who changed them, who reduced them to _caring._ She'd pulled out the letters before; she hadn't meant for anyone to know, of course. She'd hidden her transgression (because going through personal letters was a transgression, dammit) extremely well – Stefan was always out, or sleeping, or feeding when she came to read up on their past. The one thing she forgot to factor in, though, was Damon's senses. Unlike Saint Stefan, Damon had no problem with taking human blood (or killing...plundering...doing unimaginably horrible things in general), and his senses and powers reflected that. He was stronger, faster, his eyes were better...and, like a predator scenting prey, he could find a human, or where a human had resided, from a mile away.

Normally, Elena's scent in the house wouldn't have sparked his curiosity, even if it wafted from the spare bedroom – she'd retire to that room on occasion, to retrieve something she'd stored there, like clothes that couldn't actually fit in Stefan's closet, or when Stefan and her family had both irritated her. The fact that the scent was strong, lingering, though, and then add in the smell of dried blood and parchment and light hints of lavender...well, combined, he'd bothered to get his ass off the couch and put his whiskey down. The letters had been placed in a box that smelled like lavender, though after that many years, the smell was faint; the dried blood, flecks, really, had a stronger smell. (It lack of smell didn't stop Damon from thinking about the nurse who'd painted the box, though; lavender would always smell like the woman who'd kissed his forehead and wiped his tears, the woman who'd died bloody and in pain while protecting him from a monster.)

The small interior of the box peered up at him, filled to the brim with yellowed parchment. The letters on the top had been the ones he'd given to Stefan, some from during the war and some written at home. Cleverly enough, there was a false bottom to the box. It was one of the reasons he'd been given it – his nurse had told him to hide his soul's darkest secrets in the box, so that he would always have a place to confess without judgment when she was gone. Damon, at the time, had taken it one step farther – he'd given the box to his best friend and brother, who had no knowledge that he held his brother's secrets in his hands.

Maybe, Damon thought, sadistically amused, he wanted someone to read the letters he'd never handed to his brother. Maybe that was why he hadn't burned them when he got older, why he'd given the box of them to his unwitting brother, why he hadn't scared Elena away from reading them. Not that those secrets, those 'stains on his soul' were all that black (and some weren't even his fault), anyway, not when compared to what he'd done _After_. No, in fact, compared to his current...state, the person who'd written those letters had been but a naive babe.

Reaching down, Damon removed the first tray from the box, settling it (in a surprisingly delicate manner) down beside the box. Scribbles on the backs of notes stared up at him – some were written in as little as five lines, some were five paragraphs. One was brushed over in red, the dried blood having perceived all these years, the scrawl black out by what Damon now fed on. (She'd died screaming while they him down, made him watch, before...beforebeforebefore.)

He picked up one written as a child of _maybe s_ixteen years, eyes scanning. Emotions slapped him – shame, anger, sadness. The emotions weren't strong – only the remnants, the shadow of emotions, misted over whatever heart he still had.

_Again. It happened again. Nurse was not there, and she will feel guilty if I tell her about the incident. The bleeding has creased, though, so I may say nothing. I did not cry this time. _

_ I did not feel anything, not even regret, not even sadness. There was nothing._

_ I fear I may be broken past the point of healing. Maybe my soul is gone. Is it disturbing that I do not even care?_

Damon stared down, wondering if that's when it'd started – the bloodshed, the hunger for anther's pain, the lack of empathy. Maybe he'd gone wrong long before he'd become a vampire; maybe he'd just been born into apathy for human life.

Then he snorted and tossed the letter back down into the false bottom, returned the top layer and closed the box with a (gentle) snap. The past was the past; besides, it didn't matter if he'd lost his soul as a human, baptized in blood and hate and shame. The end result was the same – he was a soulless monster (and no, he wasn't disturbed by it, thank you very much).

He ignored the little voice that told him he was a liar as he left the room.


	5. Your scars tell the story

Author's Note: I'm well aware that a person would probably not be walking after taking a musket ball to the thigh. I needed it to happen, though…well, not really, but I liked the idea, and I'm taking creative license, so, uh, yeah. Don't think lowly of me for lack of historical accuracy, please. I'm also aware that I'm taking liberties with Damon's wonderful, wonderful body and limited vampire powers. I apologize for that…but it's needed for this one.

Also? It's longer than I anticipated. Oh well. It is, in fact, longer than the essay I had sat down to do.

* * *

It hurt like a…well, funnily enough, like a fucking musket ball. Despite the number of years that had passed (and yeah, there'd been a lot – he wasn't a woman to lie about age), he would always remember the pain of the musket ball ripping into his thigh. Thankfully, it had just been a serious graze, so his leg had been saved, but it had hurt.

Damon was an old friend to pain, even before the war. He'd been used to dull pains, broken and bruised and cracked bones that ached even after he'd healed (thank you, vampire magic stuff, for fixing that, he mentally added). He'd had concussions and black eyes and sprained ankles and wrists and lashes across his back for most of his life (still did, too, because, apparently, vampirism healed old wounds but not scars, which was faded but visible). He'd even been stabbed once (okay, three times, dammit it all, but he'd been drunk the last two times and didn't remember it) before he'd been sent off to fight.

Nothing, though, had hurt as bad as having a metal ball break through the left side of his thigh and right through. He remembered the burning pain, the knowledge and sight, oh, the _sight_, of a chuck of his flesh missing. He could still smell the blood (or maybe he was actually smelling his own blood in the present) as it soaked into the ground. He remembered hard hands and harder voices and people asking after his boots- _get his boots_ and _he's still livin'_. Hands as hard as the souls of the medics wrapping his thigh, telling him he _might just live, after all, he might be that stubborn_. (He's still around a hundred and fifty years later, so they must have been right.)

"Oh my god! Damon!" Elena. Geez. What a wonderfully and utterly _useless _thing to gasp out at the moment…though, he thought after a second, thinking through the pain because it was like an old friend come home to him, she would sound perfectly fine gasping that out under him an hour or so later. (Except, dammit, she was Stefan's and for some reason, Damon just couldn't _do that_. Maybe he'd gotten soft?)

"Damon." Stefan, thank god. Someone who knew how to deal with injuries. Couldn't be alive for a hundred plus without learning just a little, could you? "Hold on. We'll get Alaric. He's still at the car."

"Just…" He pushed up…except he didn't, because he wasn't gonna be moving anytime soon. What was with government officials and shooting Vervain these days? Bitches deserved to die for that. Well, that and for the sudden stake in his back, though not his heart, because, apparently, the boy was green when it came to vamps (and would die that way, because _damn_, that hurt). "Yank."

"On three." Stefan pronounced after a second. "One…"

YANK.

Fucking. Bastard. He was going to _kill them all_.

"Not too hard, was it?" He gasped out. "Blood would be nice, though."

"I'll be right back." And that meant twenty minutes at most, five at the least. They were currently a little ways away from the manor (one town over or something like that, stranded in the damn woods), which meant, with his puny-ass powers, Stefan was gonna be a little bit slower than Damon.

Damon stayed on the ground for a second after feeling the rush of the wind, then tried to heft himself up on his hands. Not the smartest move, but Elena was currently unprotected, and, really, being weak was _not _on his Favorite Hobbies List.

Being a bastard, though, was, so when Elena put her hands on shoulders pushing him back down, he smirked (weak, but a smirk, because he never just used a regular smile, he was that badass) and snarked, "You don't have to brave mortal danger to get your hands on me, you know."

Instead of scowling at him like normal, she just looked down at him, more exasperated than anything. "What are you even sitting up _for_?"

He rolled his eyes, "Elena." His 'really' tone of voice, put into wonderful use yet again with the mortal. "My shirt is wet with blood, which means it will stick to my skin…which is healing as we speak." She frowned harder. "Elena, my skin will heal _with _the cloth, and then I will have to tear it away. As much as I love pain," sarcasm, but truth, sadly enough, "I do _not _want have to tear silk away from my skin."

Oh, her mouth shaped. "I'm sorry." She moved her hands down his chest, fingers fumbling with his buttons as he held himself up out of shock. Elena was _undressing _him. Elena, who scowled at him and glared and told him he was evil and Bonnie should have just killed him on a daily basis. "I never really thought of that, though, if you think about it, when the skin knits together…"

She kept on talking as he tried to figure her out, frowning at her as she peeled the shirt off his shoulders. A sucking sound was emitted, and Damon wanted to wince; he knew the sound (and the fucking feeling, dammit, though he was pretty much able to ignore it – once again, fucking _musket wound_) of wet clothe being dragged away from gaping, bloody wounds.

"Elena." He spoke after a second, then stopped. He wasn't about to ask her why she was being…human to him. (God, he sounded like a fucking girl.) Instead, when she looked at him questioningly, he gave a smug smirk and asked, "So you want to peel off my pants, too?"

She gave a faintly disgusted look, which was par for the course for _Elena, _but an odd look for women to give him in general (ya know, before he did something evil and heartless like eat their puppy…no, wait, Stefan ate puppies; Damon just stole souls). "I'm trying to be nice here, Damon."

"Gee, I save your life _once again_ and you try and to act nice to me? What a surprise." He teased at her (though, again, in a smug tone of voice). "Maybe I should have just let the guy's partner have at you." Which was a lie – he'd never let that happen. It was one of the sins he'd never committed (unless you count mind-control, but really, one couldn't _create _desire, just _enhance_ it).

She rolled her eyes and moved to throw the shirt into the sun, where the blood started to sizzle. Then she resumed her place by his side, sitting crossed-legged by his shoulder, facing him. He lowered himself down to his stomach, hands folded under his cheek as he stared at her. She had a look on her face, one that said she was thinking – this, he thought, was going to be good.

"You'd never let a woman suffer like that." She informed him, the tart. "You're far from a good guy, Damon, but you aren't completely evil." Not yet, went the unspoken words. (Live long enough, Damon reflected in grim amusement.)

"What makes you think I wouldn't have let him get at you then swoop in, save the day and get some fun savior worship?" He leered, able to get a wonderful view of her chest…which he wasn't looking at, in all honesty. He was focused on her eyes. Despite all his bad habits, he'd been raised to treat women like ladies and Elena…Elena deserved that treatment.

"You might have done that a few months ago, I think." Elena spoke slowly after a second, feeling it out, not looking at him. "But I think when you saw him trying to…hurt me, you lost your temper. Otherwise you'd have made him hurt, I think."

Well, Damon thought, smiling faintly, maybe she knew, after all. She was right. He'd come here after hearing her scream, a few seconds before Stefan, and saw the forest ranger pawing over _their _Elena. That ranger…was now dead. Throat torn out, spine completely twisted – he wasn't ever coming back. Damon, however, hadn't sensed the ranger's partner in time, who'd apparently stalked up on fucking _Vervain_ and carried a goddamn _stake _(yeah, Damon wasn't letting Liz out for cross-town meetings ever again).

That's when Stefan had come onto the scene and saved the second man's life. As wounded as Damon had been, he'd been about to tear the man's throat out. Vervain stunned him, and paralyzed him in large doses, yes, but the real stun only lasted for a few second. It was why the stuff was so dangerous, even in small amounts – one little dose, and a human has five seconds to stuff a spike through a vamp's heart before the vampire regain some of his or her movement. The ranger was new with a stake and had missed the heart in the first three seconds…then proceeded to get another pocket sized bitch out and try again.

Yeah, if Stefan hadn't gotten there first, Damon would be dinning on AB Negative (the nice, warm, lively kind).

A small hand reached out and touched his back, running a line down the left side of his flank. "What's this?" Elena asked softly, her had stopping at the line of his pants. Instantly, Damon knew what she was talking about.

His back was covered with thin white scars, had been since he was a child. Most of them overlapped and were so light them one wouldn't even notice them on a human without proper lighting. On a vampire…yeah, well. No-one would ever notice, except, apparently, Elena.

"Scars." He said after a second, quietly, not bothering to lie. She'd just go and ask Stefan if she thought Damon was lying, and Stefan would explain what he knew. He didn't know all of it (couldn't, wouldn't, shouldn't, never would), but he knew some and he would explain that to Elena because Stefan never could keep secrets.

"I didn't know vampires scarred?" Elena asked, sounding genuinely curious.

Damon closed one eye and gave a lazy half-smile, letting her know he enjoyed her stoking hand…which she promptly pulled back. "Vampires rarely scar. Certain things can do it, but I've never had any of it done to me." He yawned, showing off fangs. "Humans, though, scar very, very easily, and sometimes, even vampirism can't cure it all."

"Oh." She was quiet for a while, as if absorbing that, a finger back to trailing down the deepest scar on his back. "I heard they were harder on people back then." Her voice was questioning, as if fishing.

He decided the indulge her. "They were. In the army," He didn't like to talk about it, but her hands were stroking his back again and if he stopped talking, she stopped moving…blackmail, beautiful blackmail. "If you disobeyed, you were beaten with a slender stick. Same in the university and in households – listen but do not talk; do not disobey; do not make a mess. Children, back then, you have to understand, were just mini-adults. They weren't allowed the freedom of today." He gave a shrug, and then regretted it.

She didn't speak for the longest time, then said, "Stefan doesn't have scars like that." Clever little thing, he mentally approved. She was asking the right questions without actually asking anything.

"Stefan wasn't in the army." Damon retorted, saying nothing about Father and…well. "Not only that, but you'd never notice scars anyway unless you saw Stefan wounded enough to drop the natural glamour. It doesn't happen often."

"What do you mean glamour?" And now she sounded very unhappy.

He snickered, "Looks like Saint Stefan hasn't spilled it all." Then he flashed her a smirk and explained, "Vampires are predators. Humans are prey. Yes, smart humans avoid us because of the subconscious signals that we all give off. Vampires, even those like Stefan, walk, talk, look like hunters. Humans see this and avoid us. At the same time, they – humans – will always be utterly fascinated by vampires. We are beautiful, bright and dark at the same time. It's more than likely a hunting technique to attract the flies."

She stared at him for a second, "So if being a vampire makes you more beautiful, you and Stefan and even…you guys didn't look like you do now, back then?"

He shook his head a little, "No, being a vampire pales you out…gives you fangs, the veins, the eyes. It doesn't actually change your looks. There's something, though, that soothes the flaws - including scars, by the way – but doesn't actually get rid of them. It's just an added bonus to being undead, like extra strength and speed."

"Oh." Elena opened her mouth to say more, but a rustle of breeze and Stefan, panting and tired, with three bags of blood in his hands.

"Oh, look, Stefan has arrived. It only look you twice as long as it'd have taken me." Damon grumbled, reaching out gingerly and taking the bag of blood (O positive, the bag read – Damon didn't give a shit. "Remind me again," he asked as he broke the bag with his fangs, grunting at the plastic taste, "Why we keep allowing Liz to produce and give away Vervain?"

"It your bright idea – deprive Pearl's group of food and piss them off without actually moving a muscle." Stefan pointed out dryly, rocking back on his heels. "Are three bags enough?"

"Two would have been enough, but three is just added pleasure." He resisted flashing Elena a _look_, because Stefan was right there, after all, and he didn't like Damon teasing his girlfriend (even if Damon was only half-teasing). "Go ahead and take Elena back. I'll take care of the bodies."

He finished the second bag in record time, speeding to his feet before the plastic bag hit the ground. Stefan reached down and picked it up, probably to burn it – leaving evidence was bad, after all. "We'll see you soon, then." A question in the form of a statement. Everyone seemed to be doing that lately.

"Of course you will. I need a whiskey after today." Damon allowed, tossing the third empty bag to his brother before moving off the unconscious ranger.

"Wait," Elena interrupted, confused as always when it came to the brother's interactions over her safety. "What are you going to do with him?" She motioned towards the man that Damon had been advancing on.

Damon merely looked at her, then at Stefan, eyebrows raised. Stefan sighed and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, "Elena – it's for the best. Damon is going to make sure he'll never do that again." Read – kill him like the cockroach he is.

Elena shook her head, hair flying, lips pressed together. "Don't. He didn't do anything – he didn't even know what his partner was doing, most likely."

Oh, innocence…or naivety, Damon was never sure which. In a split second, he moved to stand in front of her, looking down, frowning. "Elena. He knew. He was watching his partner's back…and I have no doubt they were going to take turns. They deserve to die."

She shook her head again, eyes fierce. "Compel him to never do it again, or…or…do something else. I don't want you to keep killing for me!"

It clicked, then. Damon shut his eyes and sighed. "You aren't _forcing _me to kill anyone. I'm doing this all of my own free will and violation. Hell, Elena, I _enjoy _it." He looked down at her again. "I am not the same person I was then. I no longer have any issue with murder or death."

Stefan cleared his throat, drawing their attention to him. "Would one of you two mind explaining to me what, exactly, is going on? I'm missing something important, I think."

Elena opened her mouth, but Damon beat her to it. "Well, little brother," A smile, a thrown arm over Stefan's shoulders, "Elena here has been reading some of the letters I spent you from the old days. It's making her sentimental and stupid – she's starting to think she's acting like certain other people who forced me to fight." Father. His commander.

Stefan's eyes narrowed and he turned to Elena. "I asked you not to go through that stuff and you did anyway?"

Wow, Damon through, feeling giddy. There was going to be a fi-ght. Too bad he had a forest ranger to drink dry, make scream and slowly kill. Otherwise, he'd stick around to watch it. "Well, you two lovebird should probably head home now."

Elena whipped around to glare at him and opened her mouth to retort, but he was on the other side of the clearing by the time his name left her lips. The dead ranger was dragged by the collar, the live one tossed over Damon's shoulder. "Ta."

Then he was gone, carrying his new-found prey to a very secluded spot (it had a lovely view, too, but the ranger wasn't going to be paying attention to that, now was he?). It was time to get back to doing what he knew best – causing pain and killing.


End file.
